Shawn Mendes admits he often feels like he's "drowning" and "failing - despite having huge success.
Shawn Mendes struggles with being his true self
The 'In My Blood' hitmaker has penned a candid letter to his fans on Twitter and admitted he does his best to live and be truthful to himself, but sometimes he feels "overwhelmed" and "overstimulated".
The 23-year-old pop megastar admits he fears people will lose interest in him and "think less of me" if he's always his true self.
He began in the typed-out note: "sometimes i ask my self what it is that i should be doing with my life and what i always hear in return is "to tell the truth"
i feel like that's a hard thing to do though.
“i’m afraid that if people know and see the truth they might think less of me. They might become bored of me.
“The truth, in current form is a 23 year old who constantly feels like he’s either flying or drowning. Maybe that’s just what it is to be in your 20’s idk, or maybe that’s just me. (sic)"
The 'Nothing Holding Me Back' singer explained that "most of the time it's a struggle" to be "100 per cent himself" and not care what others think of him.
He continued: "the truth is i really do wanna show up in the world as my 100% true honest unique self and not care what anyone thinks, sometimes i do!!
sometimes i really don't care what people think and i feel free. most of the time its a struggle tho
That's the truth.
The truth is even with so much success is still find it hard to feel like i'm not failing.
hyper focused on what i don't have, forgetting to see all that i do.
The truth is i'm overwhelmed and overstimulated lol
the truth is ALSO that i'm okay.
i'm just tryna tell and be the truth
i like to think that maybe me saying this might resonate with some people. (sic)"
Shawn followed up the post by reassuring his 26.7 million followers that he's "okay", and explained that he wanted to be honest about how he's been feeling in case anyone else feeling the same way can resonate and not feel alone.
He tweeted: "im honestly so okay! i just wanna communicate with you guys in a real honest way. so i just typed i big old note out for you lol ... and i guess im like damn if i’m feeling this with all of the blessings i have i imagine there must be so many people feeling this and just don’t want them to feel alone !! (sic)"
Tagged in Shawn Mendes